BookBrowse Reviews As If by Isabel Waidner

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Two nearly identical strangers meet by chance and decide to swap lives.

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Depressed after his wife's death, middle-aged actor Aubrey Lewis spends most of his time holed up alone in his apartment. That is, until he meets Lindsey Korine, a random man on the street who invites himself over. Each man thinks the other is odd, but they have one big thing in common—physically, they are nearly identical. Lewis has an audition for what could be a career-revitalizing role scheduled for the next day, but he's so depressed that he has little interest in going. So Korine, who always dreamed of being an actor, decides to go in his place, and lands the role—as Lewis. The two men proceed to step into one another's lives. Korine makes his TV debut, and Lewis moves in with Korine's family.

If it's not obvious from that plot description, this is an absurd story with a plot that defies belief—especially when a third unrelated doppelgänger appears. But Waidner's unusual novel is underpinned by a sense of wit and whimsy that makes the Kafkaesque dream-logic a joy to follow.

The role that defined Lewis's career was on a long-running, fictional BBC series called People Live, People Die, People Live as if They Were Already Dead, about a pair of spies who are, unbeknownst to them, each hired to monitor the other. The role Korine takes in Lewis's place is on a spinoff with the same plot but with two side characters from the first show, including the one Lewis played, taking the lead. The show's bizarre premise is typical of the book's quirky, dry humor, but we also later see a version of this plot playing out in real life as the men, now ensconced in one another's lives, surreptitiously keep tabs on each other.

The men are, in a sense, living parallel lives, each a version of what the other's life could have been. They realize early on that they attended the same school growing up, but Lewis was a loner focused on his dreams of becoming an actor, while Korine was popular and suppressed his own love for the dramatic arts. Each married a woman named Laurie who developed cancer at midlife, but Korine's Laurie went into remission while Lewis's died. Lewis never had kids, while Korine has a young son. In swapping lives, each gets to live out an alternate future.

The swap is not without its hiccups. Despite having a knack for acting, Korine has no idea how the set of a TV show runs. He misunderstands cues and, worse, accidentally shuns old colleagues of Lewis's. Lewis takes more naturally to fatherhood but frequently calls Korine's child by the wrong name—instead calling him the name of the character Korine is playing on TV. However, neither man was thriving in his own life before the swap. Lewis's success on the BBC show came only after he'd crashed and burned out of the West End theatrical career he'd always dreamed of. After the show ended, he was so depressed that he had no motivation to seek new employment, and by the time the novel opens, he seems to have given up on acting entirely. Korine is a bumbling, unnatural father who, in a moment of frustration, walks out of his family's lives and into Lewis's.

At no point do the men actually formally agree to switch lives. There's no Parent Trap–like plan. But Korine's arrival at the audition starts a chain of events that sees them naturally slotting into one another's roles.

It's unclear just how identical the men are, but we know there are at least some physical differences. Each notices that Korine is a bit taller, among other minor discrepancies in their appearance. But most of the other characters seem to buy that each man is the other. It makes the reader question just how much their colleagues and friends actually notice them. Have they been going through their lives without really being perceived by the people around them?

This is a book about failure and redemption. It's about what happens when you achieve your dreams and they still fail to satisfy. As If has its moments of nihilism, but it's laced with gentle humor. One ends the book with the sense that these men are never going to objectively thrive, but despite life's many disappointments, they are going to be OK.

This review first ran in the June 24, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.